Hema Fresh and others face bankruptcy for "swapping food labels"!!!
Hema Fresh exposed for "label switching" incident (Image source: Internet)
The incident of Hema Fresh's Shanghai Daning store changing the date labels on carrots continues to escalate. When the incident first came to light, the store manager stated that it was due to an employee violating operational procedures by printing labels themselves. The store manager reflected that the employee involved was a third-party outsourced worker who may have made an error in the process. After the incident was exposed, Hema offered to compensate Mr. Fang 1,000 yuan and fired the female employee who affixed the labels. Following the market regulatory authority's announcement of an investigation, Hema's CEO publicly apologized on the 21st and announced the dismissal of the Shanghai regional general manager. The label switching exposed management loopholes, for which the management team, not frontline employees, should bear responsibility, and the decision to fire the employee was rescinded.
Hema Fresh responded that it was the work of a temporary worker (Image source: Internet)
[1] Knock on the blackboard!!! As a well-known chain supermarket, it should have a complete and mature operational system with clear division of departmental responsibilities. How could such a procedural error occur? Fortunately, the expired goods sold did not lead to the worst outcome. If a fatal accident caused by food factors were to happen, the act of changing the food date labels would be enough to make the merchant bear huge compensation liability for personal injury, or even go bankrupt!
[2] Bloody real cases tell everyone
Not long ago, the lawyer team of Zhiming Law Firm represented the case of "death of young children caused by poisoned sugarcane". The cause of the incident was that the son of the involved party suffered from convulsions, blindness, coma and other symptoms after consuming sugarcane purchased at a certain shopping mall on the evening of February 10, 2015. When he was sent to the hospital for rescue, his breathing and pulse stopped, and he died after ineffective treatment. The civil first instance court adopted our viewpoint that there is a highly probable causal relationship between sugarcane spoilage and the death of young children, despite the medical test report being very unfavorable to us. However, the first instance court also believed that due to the extremely rare occurrence of sugarcane spoilage, it would be unfair to impose excessive care obligations on the shopping mall. Therefore, based on the principle of fairness, the first instance court ordered the shopping mall to bear 60% of the compensation liability.
[4] After the first-instance trial, both parties appealed. In the appeal, our team affirmed that the facts found in the first-instance trial were clear while emphasizing that "this case should not apply the principle of fairness." Because the principle of fairness can only be applied when neither the actor nor the victim is at fault. Consumers, trusting the supermarket, normally purchase and consume the food they buy, and they are obviously not at fault. Although the supermarket did not actively cause the fault, as the seller, failing to detect the spoiled goods is itself a fault. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court adopted our view. In the second-instance trial, not only did it reject the supermarket's claim of "no responsibility, not a penny to pay," but it also ordered the supermarket to bear full responsibility, changing the judgment to award our client full compensation of 1.25 million yuan. Justice was served for the client, and their grievance was redressed!
[5] Compared to the passive fault of the supermarket in the "poisonous sugarcane causing child death case," Hema Fresh's act of changing food date labels is a typical active behavior. Once consumers suffer personal injury or even death after consumption, "Hema Freshs" will face immense pressure in litigation—consumers may not even need to prove that "the food was expired and there is a high probability of a causal relationship between eating expired food and death." Just this act of fraud alone is enough to make "Hema Freshs" bear most or even all of the responsibility.
[6] The police have filed a case to investigate the "label gate" incident (image source: internet)
For businesses that engage in fraud, mainland Chinese law does not have punitive damages clauses similar to those in the United States. As long as there are no mass food poisoning incidents resulting in deaths, large companies like "Hema Fresh" can easily afford the direct economic losses. However, small businesses should be cautious: tampering with food labels could lead to bankruptcy!!!
